1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to power factor corrected circuits for driving gas discharge lamps, in particular, though not exclusively, to circuits for driving fluorescent lamps.
2. Problems in the Art
In a typical prior art circuit for driving a fluorescent lamp load, the lamps are driven by an AC voltage supply via a rectifier and a high-frequency resonant circuit including an inverter circuit. The load is coupled to the resonant circuit by a transformer.
One goal in designing an electronic ballast circuit is to optimize the power line input performance, namely the total harmonic distortion (THD) and the power factor (PF). One reason for the poor performance (THD and PF) in prior art circuits using voltage rectification and energy storage capacitors is the non-linear characteristics of the rectifying diodes. The diodes in the voltage rectifiers will only conduit current when they are forward biased. This happens only for a very short conduction time which close to the peak of the input voltage waveform.
Some prior art circuits overcame the problem of poor power line input performance through various correction schemes (e.g., a passive harmonic trap or an active "boost converter"). However, circuits using these power factor correcting schemes require more components, involve more loss, introduce more noise, and are more expensive. Also, prior art circuits operate at a high temperature and require a heat dissipation means.